The Missing Piece
by Kimmeth
Summary: What would have happened if Valjean had not stolen the bread? How would the other characters' stories play out without his influence? A series of short one-shots, one for each main character, quite dark in places.
1. Prologue

**Summary: **What would have happened if Valjean had not stolen the bread? How would the other characters' stories play out without his influence? A series of short one-shots, one for each main character, quite dark in places.

**Disclaimer: **As much as I would love to own them, especially Monsieur l'Inspecteur, these characters belong to the late, great Victor Hugo. The idea, however, is entirely mine…

**Note: **There will be chapters for Javert, Cosette, Fantine, Thénardier and Marius (not necessarily in that order) plus a pro- and epilogue from Valjean's POV. Erm, not much else to say other than enjoy!

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**Prologue**

**Valjean**

Jean Valjean looked at the loaf, unattended in the kitchen window, and his stomach growled ominously and painfully. His face was pressed up against the glass, almost as if he was trying to inhale the goodness of the bread through the thin pane that separated them. It would be so easy to take it, he thought darkly. It would keep his sister and her children from death for one more day. The family who owned the house, and the bread, were more than likely to overlook its absence, just as they overlooked the poor that lived virtually on their doorstep. They hurried by; they showed no mercy. Valjean's face contorted against the glass in anger. Why shouldn't he take his revenge against the society that had shut him and his sister out with no-one to support them? He took a step back from the window and raised a fist to smash it, but then he stopped.

In all the time that he had lived, in all the hardships that he had suffered, he had always strived to remain an honest man. Poor maybe, but morally upstanding in the eyes of God and of the law. There had to be another way. There had to be another path. He could not resort to crime. The Lord had guided him so far, and He would guide him again.

Without taking his eyes from the loaf, Valjean lowered his fist, slowly uncurling his fingers. He paused by the window for a moment longer, just wondering…

Valjean put his hands in his pockets to avoid temptation and walked away, hunching his shoulders against the chill. There was always another way.


	2. Fantine

**The Missing Piece**

**Fantine**

Fantine was dying. She had known this for a long time, although she had taken almost as long to accept the idea. Her first thought, on finally acknowledging that her time on the earth was limited, was one of fear. It was not fear for herself and her own journey into the unknown that she was feeling, but for her daughter. What would happen when she was gone and could no longer pay Cosette's upkeep? Would her little girl survive in the home of the innkeeper and his wife? Would they continue to care for her out of the goodness of their hearts, considering how she always seemed to be so ill? Fantine pondered, Cosette had never been a sickly baby, always the picture of health. What could have engendered the deterioration?

Fantine looked up at the ceiling of the prison infirmary. She had not even made it to a cell; the prison doctor had taken one look at her and sent her straight here. How was she supposed to make provisions for her daughter's care from a hospital filled in the main with the rambling and howling women whose time in jail had sent them slowly mad? At least Fantine knew that she would not be around long enough to suffer such an indignity.

Indignity. It was all Monsieur l'Inspecteur's fault, not believing her plight, not believing in Cosette's existence. If he had a daughter himself he would have understood, but, as Fantine thought with a grim smile, the man was so cold he had probably never even thought of a woman in that way, much less touched her. It was all his fault.

Her breath began to rattle, each inhalation laboured. All Monsieur l'Inspecteur's fault. As she breathed her last, Fantine cursed the policeman.

_Ah, Monsieur l'Inspecteur. When you are dying, I pray that it is with as much humiliation as I am. _


	3. Thénardier

**The Missing Piece**

**Thénardier**

The money, Thénardier had to accept, had stopped coming. They had sent several letters over the past few months, but they had not received a whisper in return, let alone a sou. From his position behind the bar, brooding over his misfortunes, Thénardier watched the little girl sweeping the floors slowly, every few strokes of the too-large brush in her too-small hands punctuated by a weak cough. This irked him for some reason, and he threw a tankard in her direction. The metal bounced off the table and the girl flinched before coughing again.

"Stop that infernal noise!" he hollered, before staring down at the bar once more and continuing to think on his situation. On the one hand, now that the money had stopped coming, there was no reason for them to keep the girl on. They had fulfilled their obligation to her naïve, gullible mother, and now that the money had stopped coming, there was no sense in keeping her in order to extort more from the stupid woman. The year had just turned, it was the slow season. No travellers passing through to supplement the inn's rapidly waning revenue. If nothing short of a miracle came up soon, they would have to pack up and move on, back to the city. It seemed a shame, leaving the niche they had carved out, but Thénardier considered himself a jack of all trades. He would find something, and he and Madame and the girls would get by, as they always did.

But this one… Thénardier looked at her, her face flushed from trying so hard not to cough. She was quiet on the whole, that was one thing in her favour. With three other females in his ears at any given moment, the time spent in her silent company was almost a blessing. And she was useful to have around. Thénardier tilted his head on one side and considered her critically. In a few years she'd be old enough to really work for him, and that would bring in a nice little sideline. Of course, he would never dream of selling his own daughters in such a way, but this one… Well, it was in her blood after all. Her mother was no better. It was a natural and logical course. Thénardier thought about his solution to the problem, and smiled, satisfied. All he had to do now was convince his wife.

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**Note:** Oh cripes. These just keep getting darker, don't they?


	4. Cosette

**Note: **I have a Klausur in less than two hours so I should probably be revising for that and not posting this, but hey. I need something to pep me up before it starts!

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**The Missing Piece**

**Cosette**

When she was little, Cosette used to dream. She used to dream of castles and toys and friends and a nice, smiling lady who she remembered fondly as her mother.

Cosette shook her head crossly, dirty blonde curls falling into her eyes. She had stopped dreaming of her mother long ago, when she had come to the conclusion that the beautiful lady in white could not possibly have been the one to give birth to her. Surely such a woman would not have left her with the Thénardiers? Surely such a woman would not have allowed her daughter's life to become such a terrible, miserable existence?

Not, of course, that Cosette had much time for dreams these days. During the day she had to clean the hovel that they called a house, making sure it was spotless for when Thénardier's cronies came round to discuss their latest criminal plans and spill liquor on her polished table and spit on her scrubbed floors. And the nights, the terrible nights, when Thénardier would turn her out onto the streets, watching as the leering drunkards pawed at her…

Cosette had learned a lot from the felons, more than they would like to admit, and she pondered the knife that she had swiped from Babet, twirling it between her fingers and testing the sharpness against her thumb. It would be so easy to end it all, by removing either herself or everyone else from the picture. Sometimes, on the worst days after the worst nights, she felt capable of murdering every last blessed one of them.

But something always stopped her. A rare dream, but a vivid one. She was back in Montfermeil, eight years old again, and a man would come and take her away. An elderly man, with a soft smile and kind eyes.

Cosette knew that he would never come, but she lived in hope. She lived for that dream. It was the only thing that kept her going.

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**Note2: **Ah, don't you just love the supernatural? You'll be pleased to know that this is the last of the 'dark' chapters, Marius's is next and is, well, typical Marius…


	5. Marius

**The Missing Piece**

**Marius**

He had seen two of the girls, the two sisters, a few times already, running around the streets delivering their carelessly addressed envelopes to the city's philanthropists, but he had never seen the third. He wondered if she was a younger sister or merely just an acquaintance. Her appearance was so different from theirs that it was almost comical to class them as related. Her complexion was pale and wan, her hair originally a brilliant gold beneath the grime. Marius's heart gave a jolt as she turned and he saw her face fully. She was beautiful. Without the starved, hardened exterior, she would have been absolutely stunning, an angel in an accursed place.

He wondered where she had come from, and how she had ended up in such straits as these. She dragged behind the other girls. She seemed dejected, her spirit completely dead behind her bright blue eyes. Presently she stumbled, but instead of picking herself and dusting herself off, she remained sitting there in the road, too tired and too sick of life to get up again. Possibly against his better judgement, Marius crossed over the street towards her. He hunkered down and held out a hand.

The girl looked at him as if he had just offered her a poisonous snake. Marius had to hide a smile. She was obviously a stranger to chivalry.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said. "I just want to help you up."

Gingerly, she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

"I'm Marius," he continued, hoping to elicit a name from her, but she stayed staring at him, silent.

"Come on!" The voice of the younger sister grated through the air and Marius turned to see the other two girls staring at them pointedly.

"Hurry up Cosette!" yelled the elder.

She broke away, but as she ran after them she cast a longing look back over one shoulder.

Marius smiled as he continued on his way. Cosette. He had known her but a moment, and he hoped that their paths would cross again.

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**Note: **I tried so hard to make it dark and brooding like the others, but my Marius is a cheerful, slightly brainless soul. He doesn't do dark and brooding very well. So I gave him a happier chapter instead. But, it just goes to show that Madame Fate will always find a way…


	6. Javert

**Note: **Not dark so much as tragic.

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**The Missing Piece**

**Javert**

Javert did not want to guess just how long he had been tied to the table in the tavern. Ignoring the uncomfortable numbness in his arms and legs, he instead listened to the sounds of the fight raging above him. The students, it was fair to say, were losing, and losing badly. Dare he hope, or was it too much to ask that maybe, before long, the National Guard would break through the barricade and someone would discover him down here? Perhaps all was not lost. Javert snorted. He knew how fickle a Madame fate could be, and luck even more so.

Presently he heard someone crash down the cellar steps, but he knew that it was not his saviour. Enjolras stared at him with hard, cold eyes, covered in powder and the grime of armed warfare. His left sleeve was saturated with blood and Javert guessed that he had been grazed by the bullet that had taken the life of a comrade.

"Come to wait out the rest of the fight?" Javert suggested sourly. Enjolras merely sneered as he crossed the room and began to untie the myriad of knots before hauling the taller man to his feet as best he could.

"If we are to die, then you are to die with us," he growled. Javert made no reply. He had expected as much. He had been prepared for it. "Turn round."

Javert did not move, looking at the younger man with something that a lesser man might have called pity.

"I would rather look death in the face," he said calmly.

"And I would rather shoot you in the back like you would have shot us."

Javert raised an eyebrow.

"Is that really the reason? Or is it that you fear to kill a man staring you in the eye?"

Enjolras flinched momentarily before he steeled himself and raised the musket he had brought with him to his shoulder, peering along the barrel.

"As you wish."

To give him his due, thought Javert, his hold was perfectly steady, despite his injury. He lined up directly with Javert's head, before moving down to his heart, his stomach and then back to his chest.

"Have you anything to say for yourself?" the young man continued. Javert remained silent. His moment of reckoning had arrived, and he would accept it with as much dignity as he could muster.

Enjolras did not hear the inspector's final words, whispered to the wind as he squeezed the trigger.

"_Vive la loi."

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**Note2 : **Considering how much I love Javert, and how much I have written about him in my other fics, I had a helluva time getting this one to work. But I am happy with how it turned out. Hope you are too!


	7. Epilogue

**The Missing Piece**

**Epilogue**

**Valjean**

Jean Valjean looked at the loaf, unattended in the kitchen window, and his stomach growled ominously and painfully. His face was pressed up against the glass, almost as if he was trying to inhale the goodness of the bread through the thin pane that separated them. It would be so easy to take it, he thought darkly. It would keep his sister and her children from death for one more day. The family who owned the house, and the bread, were more than likely to overlook its absence, just as they overlooked the poor that lived virtually on their doorstep. They hurried by; they showed no mercy. Valjean's face contorted against the glass in anger. Why shouldn't he take his revenge against the society that had shut him and his sister out with no-one to support them? He took a step back from the window and raised a fist to smash it.

He did not hesitate, and he barely felt the blood oozing from the cuts on his knuckles as he pulled them back through the jagged glass, his hand tightly clutched around the bread. For a single moment, he rejoiced in his grim resourcefulness, bringing the small loaf up to his face and breathing in its heady aroma. It was still warm from the oven. Valjean was longing to take a bite, but he knew that his family had more need of it than he. He would take it to them without delay, and they would survive another night. They would deal with the next day when it dawned.

It was only as he moved away from the house that Valjean noticed the shouts, the hue and cry that was going up as neighbours noticed the crime and began to alert others along the street. He had been discovered, red-handed in the most literal sense of the words. Valjean began to run. If he could just make it back…

"Stop thief!"

Large hands tackled him to the ground and the loaf tumbled down the street away from him. He would get five years for it, he knew. Five years in which his sister's family would starve thanks to the bastard that was the law.

From the moment the handcuffs clicked closed around his wrists, Jean Valjean was planning his escape…

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**Note: **And thus the story is complete, and the events of the Brick unfold in the way Hugo always planned… I hope you enjoyed this little foray into 'what could have been', because I do plan on writing more fics based on this premise in the future!


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